Ever flip on the lights, pull a neg from the fix, hold it to the lights and drool? I processed one the other evening, and as usual my wife had no clue what I was talking about. She did say "Neat" as it was on the light box though. Oh well. I'm off to drool somemore. You guys understand that this is a sickness.... right? :wacko:

Technological society has succeeded in multiplying the opportunities for pleasure, but it has great difficulty in generating joy. Pope Paul VI

So, I think the "greats" were true to their visions, once their visions no longer sucked. Ralph Barker 12/2004

In my experience an exciting negative rarely produces an exciting print but a boring flat negative often produces an exciting print. I've even tried making a negative image from an exciting negative to make the image live and that has not worked either.

You know Les, you’ve put into words something I’ve experienced, but not really thought about before. I too have had negative that ‘ jump off’ the lightbox, but don’t print very well whereas the unexciting one’s often produce the best results. Is it that the first sort tend to be high contrast, and therefore difficult to print, or maybe lack shadow detail? Any ideas people?

In my experience an exciting negative rarely produces an exciting print but a boring flat negative often produces an exciting print. I've even tried making a negative image from an exciting negative to make the image live and that has not worked either.

I think it may be a condenser/diffusion thing. I use a condenser enlarger, and yes, a very thin, boring negative works much better than those dramatic, contrasty ones.

I've yet to do the work of testing for personal film speed, but I have discovered that, for my enlarger, I can reduce dev times by 20-30% from recommended times, and not be hurt in the least. In fact, my usual practice is a 1 stop pull and dramatically reduced dev times.

"If You Push Something Hard Enough, It Will fall over" - Fudd's First Law of Opposition